Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13)(60)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"I’d rather you didn’t," I said between clenched teeth. "Really. Don’t."

I could endure the status quo, but I was afraid any movement at all would make things worse.

"Okay," he said. "Warren’s going to hold this jacket against your shoulder to apply some pressure, slow down that bleeding."

Big boots were replaced by little boots. "Pressure" sounded painful. Sure enough, it was.

"Shepherd of Judea," I said through clenched teeth, though I wanted to say something much, much worse. "Wow, dammit. How are the people in the house?"

"Mustapha’s checking on them now. I just glanced in to make sure they were all friendlies. One of ’em’s on the floor."

"Who shot us?"

"Big guy, looks black but with a lot of white mixed in," Warren said. "His features are real fine. Well, they were. And his hair is almost red."

"Wearing . . . a uniform?"

"No," Warren said, puzzled by my question. But I remembered the face and the hair, and I associated it with a uniform of some kind. Not armed forces . . . if I could just stop hurting, I could remember.

Someone in the house started screaming, and this time it was a woman.

"Why is she screaming?" I asked Warren.

"I guess she’s worried about . . ." Warren said.

I must have missed another second or two. Well, the pressure on the shoulder, Warren was serious about maintaining it. Mustapha was back when I opened my eyes. "Warren’s not supposed to be armed," he told me.

"Huh?" I said with a huge effort, because I actually was beginning to feel swimmy and weird. Finally. Bring on the unconsciousness, I thought; and for once, I got my wish.

I woke to chaos. The two paramedics who had come to get Tara when she went into labor were now bending over me. They looked intent on their work, which at that moment was wheeling my stretcher to the ambulance.

So here’s the story, a voice was saying in my head. Thoughts don’t have voices, of course, and I wasn’t sure who was telling me this, since I was too tired to turn my head to look around the yard. The gun is yours. Someone gave it to you. You asked Warren to take you target shooting because you wanted to be sure you knew how to use it. He cleaned it for you. That’s the only reason he had it with him. Then that ass**le came out of the house and fired at you, and naturally, Warren fired back, since he didn’t want you to get killed. Nod if you understand.

"That’s what really almost happened," I said, moving my head up and down. The medics looked at me with concern. I had misspoken. "That’s what happened, but not really." More accurate?

"Sookie, how are you feeling?" one of them asked. The taller one.

"Not too good," I said.

"We’re getting you to Clarice. You’ll be there in ten minutes," she said, a little optimistically.

"Who else is hurt?" I said.

"Just worry about yourself right now," she said. "The guy who shot you, they tell me he’s dead."

"Good," I said, and they seemed surprised. Is it not okay to be glad that someone who tried to kill you is down on the ground? If I were a better person, a much better person, I would be sorry that anyone in the world ever got hurt, but I had to face the fact that I was never going to be that nice a person. Even my grandmother hadn’t been that good.

We got to the hospital, and everything that happened after that was really unpleasant. Fortunately, I don’t remember a lot of it. And I took a nap for a while after it was over.

I didn’t hear the whole story until much later that evening. Andy Bellefleur was sitting in my room when I woke up. He was asleep, which I thought was almost funny.

When I giggled out loud, he stirred and looked at me.

"How you feeling?" he asked sternly.

"Okay," I said. "I must be taking some excellent painkillers." I was aware that my shoulder really hurt, but I didn’t care very much.

"Dr. Tonnesen took care of you. We got to talk, now that you’re awake."

While Andy took me through the story of what had happened that evening, all I could think about was how weird it was that he and Alcee had the same initials. I pointed out that fact to Andy, and he gave me a look of sheer incredulity. "Sook, I’m going to come back to talk to you tomorrow," he said. "You ain’t making any sense."

"Did you tell Alcee to search his car? There’s something bad in there," I said solemnly. "Now I’ve told you three times. He should do it. Do you think he’d let a friend of mine check it?"

Andy looked at me, and this time I could tell he was taking me seriously. "Could be," he said. "Could be I’d let someone do it if I was standing right there. Because Alcee ain’t acting like himself, not at all."

"Okeydokey," I said. "I’ll take care of that just as soooooon as I can."

"Doc’s just keeping you for the night, she says."

"Good."

As soon as Andy left, Barry came in. He looked like he’d been rode hard and put up wet. There were actually circles under his eyes. He told me what had happened in my house.

"How’s Bob doing?" I asked him out loud. I couldn’t even think at him, I was so out of it.

"He’s alive," Barry said. "He’s stable. Of course, that’s where Amelia is."

"Where’s Mr. C and Diantha?" I asked.

"Don’t you want to know who the dead man was?"

"Oh. Sure. Who?"

"Tyrese Marley," Barry said.

"I don’t get it," I said. "Of course, I’m really on some drugs. Excellent drugs. Tyrese split some firewood for me the last time he was at the house. But why was Tyrese at my house, and why did he try to shoot me?"

"You should see the inside of your head, Sookie. It’s like a rainbow in there. Tyrese drove Copley Carmichael’s car, but he left it in the cemetery and walked through the woods to your house."

"So where is Copley? Did they really sell their souls?"

"No one knows where Copley is, but I’ll tell you what Tyrese told us . . ."

Barry told me about Tyrese’s Gypsy, about the HIV, about Copley’s conviction that by using the cluviel dor (Barry had trouble explaining that part since he didn’t know much of anything about the cluviel dor) I had robbed Copley of regaining possession of Amelia and her life.

I listened to all this with very little comprehension. "I don’t get why Tyrese would set off to kill me when he learned that Gypsy was dead. Why wouldn’t he shoot Amelia’s dad? It was his fault."

"My point exactly!" Barry sounded triumphant. "But Tyrese was like a gun pointed in one direction, and her suicide pulled the trigger."